electromagnetism | Progressive Office Cabling

US Court of Appeals Veterans Affairs – Cabling Project Notes

18 Jun 2012

Project Objectives (Do not call, this project has been COMPLETED)

Number of Drops: 360 (140 duals, and 20 quads)

Ceiling: Non-plenum, separate ducting

Racks: Enclosed, 19”, will already be installed by customer

Switches: Provided by customer, 48 port

Patch cables: None necessary. They will provide patch cables from wall plate to computers and from patch panels to switches.

Labeling and documentation of all cabling is important. How this looks is important to them. Please provide a spreadsheet of all wallplates and rooms.

Location is behind elevators.

All workstation runs will terminate in wiring closet behind elevators.

We will mount patch panels in this closet on the wall. Use 24port, Cat5e, patch panels.

They will mount racks for switches.

4 pairs of fiber will run from the closet to the server room on the same floor. We are to provide the cabling plant for the fiber.

Server Room:

2, 24 port patch panels per rack.

Cabling plant for fiber to switch closet.

Existing server room

They want cable management hardware to be part of the solution. What you see in this room is what they’re cleaning up and looking to make high end and professional in the new location. Photos here include existing fiber. Note the ceiling cable management rack. In the new location these will be in place in the server room and along the ceiling in the main hallways.

New server space - Roughed in area they’re moving to.

General Floor Space:

Quad drops in each office and cube in the technology area

Dual drops in all other offices

6 drops for cable t.v.

Wall facing outside is already dry walled and insulated

Part of that wall has large window with wall space under it. Customer is unsure if drops will go there or anywhere along that outside wall.

Includes the outside wall. They’re not sure if there will be drops along this wall. If so it’ll be interesting because of the insulation. Also note that they MAY want drops under the windows along this wall.

There are some pictures of the ceiling details. Also note that the client will already have cabling runners ceiling mounted down the middle of the two main hallways to the server room.

Special Fiber Optic Line Item Bid:

US Court of Appeals wants this as a line item so they can choose to add this work or not when they’re doing the budget.

Fiber runs between floors. The floor plan represents the 6th floor. 14 runs broken out as follows. A single 6-strand fiber cable will be run from the 6th to each floor in the table below. Three strands will be connected and three will be left as spares.

# of Runs	Floor
3	11th
3	10th
3	9th
3	2nd
2	Mezzanine

12’ ceilings, concrete floors.

Conduit already exists between the floors. We have to repack the conduit we use with fire stop putty to meet fire code. See photos of the “Switch closet” for conduit images.

Upgrading or Adding to Your Network – Progressive Office can Help

12 Jan 2011

Stu Kushner

Office Cabling in DC There could be any number of reasons that your voice and data system may be changing. You might be adding more PCs or phone lines; adding a dedicated server to store critical data or adding scanners or printers to more adequately serve customer needs.

In order to ensure a seamless transition into your larger, upgraded network there’s a very good chance that you’ll need upgrades or

Choosing between Cat5e and Cat6 at your Office

24 Apr 2009

Stu Kushner

Trends

The trend is towards higher speeds, of course. Offices have faster computers, faster Internet and more demanding applications. But does this translate into a need for Cat6 cable?

Category 5e and Cat6 Cable

Cat 5e cable is an enhanced version of Cat 5 that adds specifications for far end crosstalk. Cat 5e cable does not enable longer cable distances for Ethernet networks: cables are still limited to a maximum of 100m (328 ft) in length. Each Cat 5e cable can carry up to 100mb/sec of data.

Cat 6 cable carries 1gb/sec of data and therefore has 10 times the data capacity of Cat 5e.

The Decision Considerations

Cat 6 will not make your Internet speeds faster. Even at fiber speeds, the Internet still only runs at a fraction of Cat 5 speeds. Cat 6 will also not make VOIP phones were better because VOIP uses only 60-90k per phone line. So, VOIP is a very unlikely reason for using Cat6 cabling

The only reason for using Cat 6 is because you are pushing a lot of data over your cable. This is true when you are running applications off of a server as in the case of a virtual PC environment where applications do not reside on the local desktop system. It is also true when you have applications that have very large data files as in CAD/CAM and other demanding graphic design systems.

A secondary, yet important, consideration is cost. Cat 6 cable is twice as expensive as Cat 5e and it also r

equires Cat 6 jacks, inserts, patch panels and switches. This can add considerably to the overall cost of a project. Any Cat 5 component will slow the connection down to 100mb.

Need more help? Click here to go to a page that will put you in touch with us. Answer all of the questions that you can and we will get back to you with a quote.

Bad Power Supply

4 Oct 2008

Stu Kushner

How do you know when you have a bad power supply? Well, the symptoms are fairly basic. I had a client call me last week. He said his computer would not turn on. So, I asked him to tell me if anything came up on the monitor. He said, "No, the monitor is blank". So, I asked if he could see any lights come on the CPU and he told me that the CPU's LEDs were also dark. So, I asked him to put his ear to the power supply and tell me if he could hear the fan turning. He said it seemed quiet.

So, as a final test, I asked him to carefully look at the power supply and to tell me if the fan is spinning. He said it was not. Therefore, the power supply was bad. The next trick was in looking up the exact make and model and finding a generic replacement that would fit into the system. We did and we were able to get his computer back up and working the same day.

Call Progressive Office if you need IT Support at 202-462-4290.